The following contains spoilers for Scream VI, now playing in theaters.
When slasher films had set themselves heavily into a world of the supernatural, with Jason, Chucky and Candyman leading the charge, 1996's Scream came around. Not only did Scream prove that homegrown slashers could be scary, but that it could use its own genre to push the narrative. Suddenly, a self-aware slasher mystery had become the next big thing in horror films and set a new precedent for the genre.
With six films, there have been six unique confessions that made for their big twists. However, there's only one reveal that worked better than all the others. Scream VI proved that some great reveals require a setup and as the films have grown into a franchise, connectivity has become the backbone of its narrative. In this case, connectivity always played a role in the movies, for better or worse. But where some reveals came as a genuine shock, others required more finesse and didn't always work out.
6. Scream 3 Had a Well-Crafted But Convoluted Twist
Scream 3 took Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott and her surviving friends to Hollywood, on the set of a new Stab movie. However, real murders began to take place that hit closer to home for Sidney more than ever. As it was later revealed, this was because the film's director, Roman Bridger, was actually the killer and Sidney's estranged half-brother. After being spurned by their mother, Roman made a point to get his revenge, stalking his mother's infidelity and using that to push Billy Loomis to eventually kill. While the reveal that Roman was the true mastermind of the entire Woodsboro saga was clever in the big picture, it required a convoluted reveal that could be looked at as more shoehorned in rather than surprising.
5. Scream 4's Build-Up Didn't Match the Killer's Persistence
Scream 4 came out 11 years after the last installment and didn't miss a beat in reformatting its scares for a modern audience. Now, the name of the game was media fame and Ghostface was willing to go viral by recording all of their kills. But the big twist came when the mastermind was Sidney's cousin Jill Roberts and her boyfriend/scapegoat, Charlie Walker. The movie patiently built up its mystery and made it, so Jill's reveal was totally unsuspecting. But her confession revealed someone absolutely obsessed with fame to the point of murder. In the last 20 minutes, her persistence to gain her 15 minutes of fame overshadowed her work as Ghostface.
4. Scream VI's Twist Wouldn't Work Without Scream (2022)
Scream VI continued the story of Sam and Tara Carpenter as well as the other survivors of the Woodsboro murders in Scream (2022). This entry took them to New York City, where a new Ghostface was using the legacy of the mask against Sam to make her pay for something she had done. The film made this Ghostface more ruthless than ever and hardly obsessed with horror films. The reason for this came in the confession when three killers appeared, which is a franchise first. It was then explained that Detective Wayne Bailey faked the death of his daughter, Quinn and planted her and his son into Sam's group to get close to them. The reason for this was that they were the siblings and father of Scream (2022)'s Ghostface, Richie Bailey, and wanted revenge. Sadly, the set-up and reveal, while impressive, wouldn't have worked at all without the previous film.
3. Scream (2022) Used Its Theme To Its Advantage
Scream (2022) was quickly established in the canon as a "requel" to the original, complete with new characters tied to the originals and returning legacy characters such as Dewey Riley, Gale Weathers and, of course, Sidney Prescott. However, the film followed the daughter of Billy Loomis, Sam Carpenter, who returned to Woodsboro to protect her sister Tara after a failed Ghostface attack. It was later revealed that the real killers were Sam's boyfriend Richie Kirsch and Tara's friend Amber Freeman. The two helped to revamp the Stab franchise by making it based on real murders and bringing things "back to basics." What made this reveal so effective was it used the same themes as the fifth entry in the franchise to its advantage and acknowledged everything from raised stakes to toxic fandoms.
2. Scream 2's Stakes Made Its Twist Worth It
Scream VI may have used a similar trope of using its past film to bolster its sequel reveal but Scream 2 was special because it raised the stakes. The film saw Sidney and her friends in college following the Ghostface attacks of the original. More killings began, and the stakes were raised higher when Randy Meeks was killed as well. The big reveal was cleverly teased as well when college student Mickey Altieri seemed like the sole mastermind, hoping to get famous in the murder trial. However, Billy Loomis' mom, Nancy was the real orchestrator of it all and set the precedent that these movies were full of surprises.
1. Scream's Twist Revolutionized Slashers And Mysteries
The original and arguably still the best, Scream showed that lasher films could be scary even when the rules were preestablished. But with all of these rules, no one could've suspected that the big killer reveal would've been Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis, who was angered at how her mother tore his family apart. Furthermore, the rules changed again when it turned out there was a second killer in Stu Macher. From that point on slashers and mystery, movies got smarter thanks to a deceptively simple reveal that changed everything.
To see Ghostface's bloody return, Scream VI is in theaters now.